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https://archive.org/details/peoplesideaofgodOOeddy 


THE 


PEOPLE'S  IDEA  OF  GOD 

ITS  EFFECT  ON 


HEALTH  AND  CHRISTIANITY. 


BY 

MRS.  M.  B.  G.  EDDY,  ; 

PASTOR  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  CHRIST,  SCIENTIST. 


TWENTIETH  EDITION. 


CAMBRIDGE: 

JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON. 
2Enibcrsttg  Ijlress. 

1905. 


Copyright , 1886 , 

By  Mary  B.  G.  Eddy. 


2. S3.  5 

EU2.  pe 


THE  PEOPLE’S  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


One  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism.  — Eph.  iv.  5. 

LIVERY  Step  of  progress  is  a step  more  spiritual.  The 
' great  element  of  reform  is  not  born  of  human  wisdom  ; 
it  draws  not  its  life  from  human  organizations  ; rather  is  it 

- the  crumbling  away  of  material  elements  from  thoughts  and 

- things,  the  translation  of  matter  back  to  its  original  lan- 

- guage,  — Mind,  and  the  final  unity  between  man  and  God. 
The  footsteps  of  thought,  as  they  pass  from  the  sensual  side 
of  existence  to  the  reality  and  Soul  of  all  things,  are  slow, 
portending  a long  night  to  the  traveller ; but  the  guardians 
of  this  night  are  the  angels  of  His  presence,  that  impart 
grandeur  to  the  intellectual  wrestling  and  collisions  with 
mortal  beliefs,  as  we  drift  into  more  spiritual  latitudes.  The 
beatings  of  our  heart  can  be  heard  ; but  the  ceaseless  throb- 

- bings  and  throes  of  thought  are  unheard,  as  it  changes  from 
material  to  spiritual  stand-points.  Even  the  pangs  of  death 
disappear  accordingly  as  the  understanding  that  we  are 
spiritual  beings  here  reappears,  and  we  learn  our  capabilities 
for  good,  which  insures  man’s  continuance  and  is  the  true 
glory  of  immortality. 


4 


The  improved  theory  and  practice  of  religion  and  of  medh 
cine  are  mainly  due  to  the  people’s  improved  views  of  the 
Supreme  Being.  As  the  finite  and  personal  sense  of  Deity, 
based  on  material  conceptions  of  spiritual  being,  yields  its 
grosser  elements,  we  shall  learn  what  God  is,  and  what 
God  does  for  man.  I like  the  Hebrew  term  that  gives 
another  letter  to  the  word  God  and  makes  it  good ; for  this 
unites  science  and  Christianity,  whereby  we  learn  that 
God,  good,  is  the  divine  Principle,  — more  than  a person  ; 
and  this  Principle  is  learned  through  mind  instead  of  mat- 
ter, in  and  of  purity  and  holiness,  of  Soul  instead  of  sense, 
and  by  revelation  supporting  reason.  It  is  the  false  con- 
ceptions of  Spirit,  based  on  the  evidences  gained  from  the 
so-called  material  senses,  that  make  a Christian  only  in 
theory,  shockingly  material  in  practice,  and  form  its  Deity 
outol  the  worst  human  qualities,  else  of  wood  or  stone. 

Such  a theory  has  overturned  empires  in  demoniacal  con- 
tests over  religion.  Proportionately  as  the  people’s  belief 
of  God,  in  every  age,  has  been  dematerialized  and  imperson- 
alized,  has  their  Deity  become  good  ; no  longer  a personal 
tyrant  or  a molten  image,  but  the  divine  and  spiritual  model 
of  eternal  Life,  Truth,  and  Love, — Life  without  beginning 
or  ending,  Truth  without  a lapse  or  error,  and  Love  univer- 
sal, infinite,  and  eternal.  This  more  perfect  idea,  held  con- 
stantly before  the  people’s  mind,  must  have  a benign  and 
elevating  influence  upon  the  character  of  nations  as  well  as 
individuals,  and  will  lift  man  ultimately  to  the  understand- 
ing that  our  ideals  form  our  characters,  and  “ as  a man 
thinketh  so  is  he.”  The  crudest  ideals  of  speculative  the- 
ology have  made  monsters  of  men  ; and  the  ideals  of  materia 
viedica  have  made  helpless  invalids  and  cripples.  The  eter- 
nal roasting  amidst  noxious  vapors ; the  election  of  the 


minority  to  be  saved  and  the  majority  to  be  eternally  pun- 
ished ; the  wrath  of  God,  to  be  appeased  by  the  sacrifice  and 
torture  of  his  favorite  Son, — are  some  of  the  false  beliefs 
that  have  produced  sin,  sickness,  and  death  ; and  then  would 
say  that  these  are  natural,  and  that  Christianity  and  Christ- 
healing  are  preternatural ; yea,  that  make  a mysterious  God 
and  a natural  devil.  It  requires  more  than  another  Flood  to 
efface  the  dire  effects  of  such  false  systems. 

Let  us  rejoice  that  the  bow  of  Omnipotence  already  spans 
the  moral  heavens  with  light,  and  that  the  more  spiritual 
idea  of  Good  and  Truth  meets  the  old  material  thought  like 
a promise  upon  the  cloud,  while  it  inscribes  on  the  thoughts 
of  men  at  this  period  a more  metaphysical  religion  founded 
upon  Christian  Science.  A personal  God  is  based  on  finite 
premises,  where  thought  begins  wrongly  to  apprehend  the 
infinite,  even  the  quality  or  the  quantity  of  eternal  Good. 
This  limited  sense  of  God  as  good  limits  human  thought 
and  action  in  their  goodness,  and  assigns  them  mortal  fetters 
in  the  outset.  It  has  implanted  in  our  religions  certain  un- 
spiritual shifts,  such  as  dependence  on  personal  pardon  for 
salvation,  rather  than  obedience  to  our  Father’s  demands, 
whereby  we  grow  out  of  sin  in  the  way  that  our  Lord  has 
appointed,  namely,  by  working  out  our  own  salvation.  It 
has  given  to  all  systems  of  materia  medica  nothing  but  ma- 
terialism,— more  faith  in  hygiene  and  drugs  than  in  God. 
Idolatry  sprang  from  the  belief  that  God  is  a form,  more 
than  an  infinite  and  divine  Mind;  sin,  sickness,  and  death 
originated  in  the  belief  that  spirit  materialized  into  a body, 
infinity  became  finity,  or  man,  and  the  Eternal  entered  the 
temporal.  Mythology,  or  the  myth  of  ologies,  said  that  Life, 
which  is  infinite  and  eternal,  could  enter  finite  man  through 
his  nostrils,  and  matter  become  intelligent  of  good  and  evil, 


because  a serpent  said  it.  When  first  good,  God,  was  named 
a person,  and  evil  another  person,  the  error  that  a personal 
God  and  a personal  devil  entered  into  partnership  and 
would  form  a third  person,  called  material  man,  obtained 
expression.  But  these  unspiritual  and  mysterious  ideas  of 
God  and  man  are  far  from  correct. 

The  glorious  Godhead  is  Life,  Truth,  and  Love,  and  these 
three  terms  for  one  divine  Principle  are  the  three  in  one  that 
can  be  understood,  and  that  find  no  reflection  in  sinning, 
sick,  and  dying  mortals.  No  miracle  of  grace  can  make  a 
spiritual  mind  out  of  beliefs  that  are  as  material  as  the 
heathen  deities.  The  pagan  priests  appointed  Apollo  and 
Esculapius  the  gods  of  medicine,  and  they  inquired  of  these 
heathen  deities  what  drugs  to  prescribe.  Systems  of  re- 
ligion and  of  medicine  grown  out  of  such  false  ideals  of  the 
Supreme  Being  cannot  heal  the  sick  and  cast  out  devils, 
error.  Eschewing  a materialistic  and  idolatrous  theory  and 
practice  of  medicine  and  religion,  the  apostle  devoutly  re- 
commends the  more  spiritual  Christianity,  — One  Lord,  one 
faith,  one  baptism.  The  prophets  and  apostles,  whose  lives 
are  the  embodiment  of  a living  faith,  have  not  “ taken  away 
our  Lord,  that  we  know  not  where  they  have  laid  him  ; ” 
they  have  resurrected  a deathless  life  of  love  ; and  into  the 
cold  materialisms  of  dogma  and  doctrine  we  look  in  vain 
for  their  more  spiritual  ideal,  the  risen  Christ,  whose  mate- 
ria medica  and  theology  were  one. 

The  ideals  of  primitive  Christianity  are  nigh,  even  at 
our  door.  Truth  is  not  lost  in  the  mists  of  remoteness,  or 
the  barbarisms  of  spiritless  codes.  The  right  ideal  is  not 
buried,  but  has  risen  higher  to  our  mortal  sense,  and  having 
overcome  death  and  the  grave,  wrapped  in  a pure  winding- 
sheet,  it  sitteth  beside  the  sepulchre  in  angel-form,  saying 


7 


unto  us,  “ Life  is  God  ; and  our  ideal  of  God  has  risen  above 
the  sod  to  declare  his  omnipotence.”  This  white-robed 
thought  points  away  from  matter  and  doctrine,  or  dogma, 
to  the  diviner  sense  of  Life  and  Love, — yea,  to  the  Principle 
that  is  God,  and  to  the  demonstration  thereof  in  healing  the 
sick.  Let  us  then  heed  this  heavenly  visitant,  and  not 
entertain  the  angel  unawares. 

The  Ego  is  not  self-existent  matter  animated  by  mind, 
but  in  itself  is  mind  ; therefore  a truth-filled  mind  makes  a 
pure  Christianity  and  a healthy  mind  and  body.  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  said,  in  a lecture  before  the  Harvard  Medi- 
cal School  ; “I  firmly  believe  that  if  the  whole  materia 
medica  could  be  sunk  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  it  would  be 
all  the  better  for  mankind  and  all  the  worse  for  the  fishes.” 
Dr.  Benjamin  Waterhouse  writes  : “ I am  sick  of  learned 
quackery.”  Dr.  Abercrombie,  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Col- 
lege of  Physicians  in  Edinburgh,  writes : “ Medicine  is  the 
science  of  guessing.”  Dr.  James  Johnson,  Surgeon  Extraor- 
dinary to  the  King,  says  : “ I declare  my  conscientious 
belief,  founded  on  long  observation  and  reflection,  that 
if  there  was  not  a single  physician,  surgeon,  apothecary, 
man-midwife,  chemist,  druggist,  or  drug  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  there  would  be  less  sickness  and  less  mortality  than 
now  obtains.”  Voltaire  says:  “The  art  of  medicine  con- 
sists in  amusing  the  patient  while  Nature  cures  the 
disease.” 

Believing  that  man  is  the  victim  of  his  Maker,  we  natu- 
rally fear  God  more  than  we  love  him  ; whereas  “ perfect 
love  casteth  out  fear  ; ” but  when  we  learn  God  aright  we 
love  him,  because  he  is  found  altogether  lovely.  Thus  it 
is  that  a more  spiritual  and  true  ideal  of  Deity  improves  the 
race  physically  and  spiritually.  God  is  no  longer  a mystery 


8 


c 


to  the  Christian  Scientist,  but  a divine  Principle,  understood 
in  part,  because  the  grand  realities  of  Life  and  Truth  are 
found  destroying  sin,  sickness,  and  death  ; and  it  should  no 
longer  be  deemed  treason  to  understand  God,  when  the 
Scriptures  enjoin  us,  to  “acquaint  now  thyself  with  God 
and  be  at  peace  ; ” we  should  understand  something  of  that 
great  good  for  which  we  are  to  leave  all  else. 

Periods  and  peoples  are  characterized  by  their  highest  or 
their  lowest  ideals,  by  their  God  and  their  devil.  We  are 
all  sculptors  working  out  our  own  ideals,  and  leaving  the 
impress  of  mind  on  the  body  as  well  as  on  history  and  mar- 
ble, chiselling  to  higher  excellence,  or  leaving  to  rot  and 
ruin  the  mind’s  ideals.  Recognizing  this  as  we  ought,  we 
shall  turn  often  from  marble  to  model,  from  matter  to  mind, 
to  beautify  and  exalt  our  lives. 

Chisel  in  hand  stood  a sculptor-boy, 

With  his  marble  block  before  him  ; 

And  his  face  lit  up  with  a smile  of  joy 
As  an  angel  dream  passed  o’er  him. 

He  carved  the  dream  on  that  shapeless  stone 
With  many  a sharp  incision. 

With  heaven’s  own  light  the  sculptor  shone,— 

He  had  caught  the  angel-vision. 


“ Sculptors  of  life  are  we  as  we  stand 
With  our  lives  uncarved  before  us, 
Waiting  the  hour  when  at  God’s  command 
Our  life  dream  passes  o’er  us. 

If  we  carve  it  then  on  the  yielding  stone 
With  many  a sharp  incision, 

Its  heavenly  beauty  shall  be  our  own,  — 
Our  lives  that  angel-vision.” 


To  remove  those  objects  of  sense  called  sickness  and  dis- 
ease, we  must  appeal  to  mind  to  improve  its  subjects  and 


9 


> > 


objects  of  thought,  and  give  to  the  body  those  better  delin 
eations.  Scientific  discovery  and  the  inspiration  of  Truth 
have  taught  me  that  the  health  and  character  of  man  be- 
come more  or  less  perfect  as  his  mind-models  are  more  or 
less  spiritual.  Because  God  is  spirit  our  thoughts  must 
spiritualize  to  approach  him,  and  our  methods  grow  more 
spiritual  to  accord  with  our  thoughts.  Religion  and  medi- 
cine must  be  dematerialized  to  present  the  right  idea  of 
truth  ; then  will  this  idea  cast  out  error  and  heal  the  sick. 
If  changeableness  that  repenteth  itself ; partiality  that  elects 
some  to  be  saved  and  others  to  be  lost,  or  that  answers  the 
prayer  of  one  and  not  of  another;  if  incompetency  that 
cannot  heal  the  sick,  or  lack  of  love  that  will  not ; if  un- 
mercifulness, that  for  the  sins  of  a few  tired  years  punishes 
man  eternally,  — are  our  conceptions  of  Deity,  we  shall 
bring  out  these  qualities  of  character  in  our  own  lives  and 
extend  their  influence  to  others. 

Judaism,  enjoining  the  limited  and  definite  form  of  a 
national  religion,  was  not  more  the  antithesis  of  Christianity 
than  are  our  finite  and  material  conceptions  of  Deity.  Life 
is  God;  but  we  say  that  Life  is  carried  on  through  principal 
processes,  and  speculate  concerning  material  forces.  Mind 
is  supreme;  and  yet  we  make  more  of  matter,  and  lean  upon 
it  for  health  and  life.  Mind,  that  governs  the  universe, 
governs  every  action  of  the  body  as  directly  as  it  moves  a 
planet  and  controls  the  muscles  of  the  arm.  God  grant 
that  the  trembling  chords  of  human  hope  shall  again  be 
swept  by  the  divine  Talitha  cumi , “Damsel,  I say  unto  thee, 
Arise ! ” Then  shall  Christian  Science  again  appear,  to  light 
our  sepulchres  with  immortality.  We  thank  our  Father 
that  to-day  the  uncremated  fossils  of  material  systems,  al- 
ready charred,  are  fast  fading  into  ashes ; and  that  man 


IO 


( 


will  ere  long  stop  trusting  where  there  is  no  trust,  and  gorg- 
ing his  faith  with  skill  proved  a million  times  unskilful. 

Christian  Science  has  one  faith,  one  Lord,  one  baptism; 
and  this  faith  builds  on  Spirit,  not  matter;  and  this  baptism 
is  the  purification  of  mind,  — not  an  ablution  of  the  body  but 
tears  of  repentance,  an  overflowing  love,  washing  away  the 
motives  for  sin ; yea,  it  is  love  leaving  self  for  God.  The 
cool  bath  may  refresh  the  body,  or  as  compliance  with  a re- 
ligious rite  may  declare  one’s  belief;  but  it  cannot  purify  his 
mind,  or  meet  the  demands  of  Love.  It  is  the  baptism  of 
Spirit  that  “ washes  our  robes  and  makes  them  white  in 
the  blood  of  the  Lamb  ; ” that  bathes  us  in  the  life  of  Truth 
and  the  truth  of  Life.  Having  one  Lord,  we  shall  not  be 
idolaters,  dividing  our  homage  and  obedience  between  mat- 
ter and  Spirit ; but  shall  work  out  our  own  salvation,  after 
the  model  of  our  Father,  who  never  pardons  the  sin  that  de- 
serves to  be  punished  and  can  be  destroyed  only  through 
suffering. 

“ We  ask  and  receive  not,  because  we  ask  amiss,”  even 
dare  to  invoke  the  divine  aid  of  Spirit  to  heal  the  sick,  and 
then  administer  drugs  with  full  confidence  in  their  efficacy, 
showing  our  greater  faith  in  matter,  despite  the  authority 
of  Jesus  that  “ye  cannot  serve  two  masters.” 

Silent  prayer  is  a desire,  fervent,  importunate:  here  meta- 
physics is  seen  to  rise  above  physics,  and  rest  all  faith  in 
Spirit,  and  remove  all  evidence  of  any  other  power  than 
mind  ; whereby  we  learn  the  great  fact  that  there  is  no 
Omnipotence,  unless  Omnipotence  is  the  All- power.  This 
truth  of  Deity  understood  destroys  discord,  with  the  higher 
and  more  potent  evidences  in  Christian  Science  of  man’s 
harmony  and  immortality.  Thought  is  the  essence  of  an  v 
act,  and  the  stronger  element  of  action  ; even  as  steam  is 


II 


more  powerful  than  water,  simply  because  it  is  more  ethereal. 
Essences  are  refinements  that  lose  some  materiality  ; and  as 
we  struggle  through  the  cold  night  of  physics,  matter  will 
become  vague,  and  melt  into  nothing  under  the  microscope 
of  mind. 

Massachusetts  succored  a fugitive  slave  in  1853,  and  put 
her  humane  foot  on  a tyrannical  prohibitory  law  regulating 
the  practice  of  medicine  in  1880.  It  were  well  if  the  sister 
States  had  followed  her  example,  and  sustained  as  nobly 
our  constitutional  “ Bill  of  Rights.”  Discerning  the  God- 
given  rights  of  man,  Paul  said,  “ I was  free  born.”  Justice 
and  truth  make  man  free,  injustice  and  error  enslave  him. 
Mental  science  alone  grasps  the  standard  of  liberty,  and  bat- 
tles for  man’s  whole  rights,  divine  as  well  as  human.  It 
assures  us,  of  a verity,  that  mortal  beliefs,  and  not  a law  of 
nature,  have  made  men  sinners  and  sick,  — that  they  alone 
have  fettered  free  limbs,  and  marred  in  mind  the  model  of 
man. 

We  possess  our  own  body  and  make  it  harmonious  or  dis- 
cordant according  to  the  images  that  thought  reflects  upon 
it.  The  emancipation  of  our  bodies  from  sickness  will  fol- 
low the  mind’s  freedom  from  sin  ; and,  as  St.  Paul  admon- 
ishes, we  should  be  “ waiting  for  the  adoption,  to  wit,  the 
redemption  of  the  body.”  The  rights  of  man  were  vindi- 
cated but  in  a single  instance  when  African  slavery  was 
abolished  on  this  continent,  yet  that  hour  was  a prophecy 
of  the  full  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God  as  found  in  Christian 
Science.  The  defenders  of  the  rights  of  the  colored  man 
were  scarcely  done  with  their  battles  before  a new  abolition- 
ist struck  the  key-note  of  higher  claims,  in  which  it  was 
found  that  the  feeblest  mind,  enlightened  and  spiritualized, 
can  free  its  body  from  disease  as  well  as  sin ; and  this 


( 


12 

victory  is  achieved,  not  with  bayonet  and  blood,  not  by 
inhuman  warfare,  but  in  divine  peace. 

Above  the  platform  of  human  rights  let  us  build  another 
staging  for  diviner  claims,  — even  the  supremacy  of  Soul  over 
sense,  wherein  man  co-operates  with  and  is  made  subject 
to  his  Maker. — The  lame,  the  blind,  the  sick,  the  sensual 
are  slaves  ; and  their  fetters  are  gnawing  away  life  and  hope  ; 
and  their  chains  are  clasped  by  the  false  teachings,  false 
theories,  false  fears,  that  enforce  new  forms  of  oppression, 
and  are  the  modern  Pharaohs  that  hold  the  children  of 
Israel  still  in  bondage.  Mortals,  alias  mortal  minds,  make 
the  laws  that  govern  their  bodies,  as  directly  as  men  pass 
legislative  acts  and  enact  penal  codes;  while  the  body,  obe- 
dient to  the  legislation  of  mind,  but  ignorant  of  the  law  of 
belief,  calls  its  own  enactments  “ laws  of  matter.”  The  leg- 
islators who  are  greatly  responsible  for  all  the  woes  of  man- 
kind are  those  leaders  of.  public  thought  who  are  mistaken 
in  their  methods  of  humanity.— — 

The  learned  quacks  of  this  period  “ bind  heavy  burdens 
that  they  themselves  will  not  touch  with  one  of  their  fin- 
gers.” Scientific  guessing  conspires  unwittingly  against 
the  liberty  and  lives  of  men.  Should  we  but  hearken  to 
the  higher  law  of  God,  we  should  think  for  one  moment  of 
these  divine  statutes  of  God  ; let  them  have  “dominion  over 
all  the  earth.”  “And  if  they  drink  any  deadly  thing  it 
shall  not  hurt  them.  They  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick,  and 
they  shall  recover.”  The  only  law  of  sickness  or  death  is  a 
law  of  mortal  belief,  and  infringement  on  the  merciful  and 
just  government  of  God.  When  this  great  fact  is  under- 
stood, the  spurious,  imaginary  laws  of  matter — when  mat- 
ter is  not  a law-giver  — will  be  disputed  and  trampled  under 
the  feet  of  Truth.  Deal,  then,  with  this  fabulous  law  as  with 


13 


> 


an  inhuman  State  law  ; repeal  it  in  mind,  and  acknowledge 
only  God  in  all  thy  ways,  “who  forgiveth  all  thine  iniquities, 
and  healeth  all  thy  diseases.”  Few  there  be  who  know 
what  a power  mind  is  to  heal  when  imbued  with  the  spirit- 
ual truth  that  lifts  man  above  the  demands  of  matter. 

As  our  ideas  of  Deity  advance  to  truer  conceptions, 
we  shall  take  in  the  remaining  two  thirds  of  God’s  plan 
of  redemption,  — namely,  man’s  salvation  from  sickness  and 
death.  Our  blessed  Master  demonstrated  this  great  truth 
of  healing  the  sick  and  raising  the  dead  as  God’s  whole 
plan,  and  proved  the  application  of  its  principle  to  human 
wants.  Having  faith  in  drugs  and  hygienic  drills,  we  lose 
faith  in  Omnipotence,  and  give  the  healing  power  to  matter 
instead  of  Spirit.  As  if  Deity  would  not  if  he  could,  or 
could  not  if  he  would,  give  health  to  man;  when  our  Father 
bestows  heaven  not  more  willingly  than  health  ; for  without 
health  there  could  be  no  heaven. 

The  worshippers  of  wood  and  stone  have  a more  material 
Deity,  hence  a lower  order  of  humanity,  than  those  who  be- 
lieve that  God  is  a personal  Spirit.  But  the  worshippers  of 
a person  have  a lower  order  of  Christianity  than  he  who  un- 
derstands that  the  Divine  Being  is  more  than  a person,  and 
can  demonstrate  in  part  this  great  impersonal  Life,  Truth, 
and  Love  casting  out  error  and  healing  the  sick.  This  all- 
important  understanding  is  gained  in  Christian  Science, 
revealing  the  one  God  and  his  all-power  and  ever-presence,  ! 
and  the  brotherhood  of  man  in  unity  of  Mind  and  oneness 
of  Principle. 

On  the  startled  ear  of  humanity  rings  out  the  iron  tread 
of  merciless  invaders,  putting  man  to  the  rack  for  his 
conscience,  or  forcing  from  the  lips  of  manhood  shameful 
confessions,  — Galileo  kneeling  at  the  feet  of  priestcraft,  and 


H 


giving  the  lie  to  science.  But  the  lofty  faith  of  the  pious 
Polycarp  proved  the  triumph  of  mind  over  the  body  when 
they  threatened  to  let  loose  the  wild  beasts  upon  him,  and 
he  replied  : “ Let  them  come  ; I cannot  change  at  once 
from  good  to  bad.”  Then  they  bound  him  to  the  stake,  set 
tire  to  the  fagots,  and  his  pure  faith  went  up  through  the 
baptism  of  fire  to  a higher  sense  of  Life.  The  infidel  was 
blind  who  said,  “ Christianity  is  fit  only  for  women  and 
weak-minded  men.”  But  infidels  disagree  ; for  Bonaparte 
said  : “ Since  ever  the  history  of  Christianity  was  written, 
the  loftiest  intellects  have  had  a practical  faith  in  God  ; ” 
and  Daniel  Webster  said  : “ My  heart  has  assured  and  re- 
assured me  that  Christianity  must  be  a divine  reality.” 

As  our  ideas  of  Deity  become  more  spiritual,  we  express 
them  by  objects  more  beautiful.  To-day  we  clothe  our 
thoughts  of  death  with  flowers  laid  upon  the  bier,  and  in 
our  cemeteries  with  amaranth  blossoms,  evergreen  leaves, 
fragrant  recesses,  cool  grottos,  smiling  fountains,  and  white 
monuments.  The  dismal  gray  stones  of  church-yards  have 
crumbled  into  decay,  as  our  ideas  of  Life  have  grown  more 
spiritual ; and  in  place  of  “ bat  and  owl  on  the  bending 
stones  are  wreaths  of  immortelles,  and  white  fingers  point- 
ing upward.”  Thus  it  is  that  our  ideas  of  divinity  form  our 
models  of  humanity.  O Christian  scientist,  thou  of  the 
church  of  the  new-born  ; awake  to  a higher  and  holier  love 
for  God  and  man  ; put  on  the  whole  armor  of  Truth  ; rejoice 
in  hope;  be  patient  in  tribulation,  — that  ye  may  go  to  the 
bed  of  anguish,  and  look  upon  this  dream  of  life  in  matter, 
girt  with  a higher  sense  of  Omnipotence;  and  behold  once 
again  the  power  of  divine  Life  and  Love  to  heal  and  rein- 
state man  in  God’s  own  image  and  likeness,  having  “ one 
Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism.” 


